Daily Yellowstone journal., 1887-09-02
BIG GEMS m ABUNDANCE.


ocfyhht ocEuuts ~ SonFNs " -. ~
Other Gems by the Pound.
II would surprise some people who
treasure little chips Of sparkling stones in
rings OF pins to learn how common some
of those same stones may be-and this
without reference to the bogus jewels Of
the shops. The writer has a bit Of aqua
marine cut from a single crystal that
weighed four and one-haf ounces, and
containing material enough for dozens Of
gems, but even this crystal was of small
consequence as compared with one now
in possession Of the emperor Of Brazil,
for that weighs eighteen pounds, and is
Of the size and nearly the shape of a calf's
head. New England, especially the
states of Maine and New Hampshire,
abounds in ~aquamarines or beryls, and
the biggest find was at Grafton, N. H.,
where a crystal weighing 1890 pounds
wa taken out. This, however, was
nearly opaque, and was consequently use
less for jewelry purposes. Graham & Co.
are cutting up q garnet recently found in
North Carolina that weighed four pounds
seven and q half ounces, and another
firm of lapidaries has a garnet Of nearly
the same weight found ina gneissoid ledge
In the neighborhood Of West Seventeen
or Eightieth street, New York, although
this latter piece is too cloudy and too
heavily f1awed to cut.
A Scotchman will show you the cairn-
germ or smoky quartz in the hilt Of his
dirk or pin Of his plaid and brag Of it if
Il turns the scales at M ounce. What
would he think Of the 200 pound crystal
and of the punches Of crystals that aggre-
gate tons in weight, found near the lief
engletscher and brought down to the
Berne museum? Malachite was formerly
used for jewelry toa considerable extent,
for the large quarries Of it were, until
lately, unknown. It is recorded of a
young fop who visited one Of the Roths-
childs that he was 30 proud Of his mala-
chite sleeve buttons that he insisted upon
exhibiting them to his host. Rothschild
looked at them and said: .'Yes, it is a
pretty stone. / have always liked il. /
have a mantelpiece made Of it in the
next room" As to the once precious
jasper, porphyry, and chalcedony one has
only to visit the Paris Grand Opera to
find them used as architectural material.
The blackstone, or heliotrope, is a green
Jasper, fecked with red, that is often
used in rings, yet it is discovered in large
blocks in some parts of the world. The
royal collection in Paris contains a head
of Christ made Of this stone, where the
red spots are brought into the artistic
scheme by representing blood from the
crow of thorns.
Onyx is abundant in the west and else
where, and the Mantuan vase at Bruins
wick, made Of this material, is seven
inches high by two and one-half inches
broad. Nero had two cups of rock
crystal O quartz, one of which cost him
81, 900, and that, with a characteristic
disregard of expense, he dashed to pieces
when informed that the people were in
revolt against him. Topazes are beauti-
full stones and not very expensive. They
ought not to be when humps Of them
eighty pounds in weight can be lifted out
Of the earth, as was done in Broddho,
Sweden. In spite of the comparative
abundance of certain gems, however, the
glaasmaker f1ourishes, and sometimes he
comes % near to reality that the
elect are deceived, while real stones often
simulate each other and can only be de-
termined by tests in cutting. The wife
of a dealer in gems has worn a beautiful
'~'steel'' topaz for twenty years in the
belief that it is a diamond, and her hus-
band has never deemed it necessary to
undeceive her.
Fraudulent gems, or ''doublets, " are
sometimes faced with a thin slice of the
stone they initiate that is made to adj
here by means Of transparent cement, for
this facing of stone will wear much lon
ger than glass-the latter becoming
scratched and dimmed even by exposure
to the dust of our streets. Glass or
paste gems, however, are usually a
little off color. The glass amethyst, for
example, has a smoky quality different
from the royal purple Of this stone; the
glass garnet has not the deep and fiery
crimson that flashes like a coal of fire
from the facet Of a true garnet; the
emerald Of glass is colder in color than
the native crystal and has not its bright
ness. Deceit is not only TO be detected in
the color, but by tests with files and
acids, by dropping into water, by heat
and electricity. 1t is said that the quick
est way to judge the veracity of a dia-
mond is to drop it into water. If it con-
tinues TO sparkle it is real; il it becomes
dead and CLASSY it is an imitation. All
bogus diamonds sold under the names Of
Alaska diamonds, California diamonds,
Rocky mountain diamonds, Rhine stones
and the like are made of the best flint
glass, and are cut with the same skill and